I originally wrote this on Qt3 but I think this might be helpful to others who are wondering about the effects of working long hours.

Here are my views on the matter:

I think with most people, 55 to 60 hours a week is about the maximum before they start to eat up stored health/sanity points. And even there, over time, you will start to suffer burn-out -- the rate depends on how much you enjoy what you’re working on. But sooner or later, it’ll catch up on you.

Up until last year, my typical work week was 60 hours. That's about 10 hours a day, 6 days a week and I'd take Sunday off for family/video games/etc. I would regularly push a beyond those hours because I was ignorant of the gradual effects of working beyond a healthy dose had on me.

I got my first real taste of working really long hours In 2009, when Demigod came out. It is a multiplayer-centric game with servers designed to help connect users. Like many Internet-centric games, its initial launch overwhelmed our infrastructure and we raced to fix/add to it. That event started a bad habit on my part of doing all-nighters. As a result, my normal schedule rose from 60 to 80 hours even after the 100 hour weeks of the Demigod effort subsided.

Less than a year later, still really not recovered from the work on Demigod and with Impulse really starting to take off, I returned to working on a PC game called War of Magic. It was at the tail end of development and our retail launch window had been set to August. My hours returned to being over 90 a week during the Summer – one all nighter a week.

Here is the part I want to emphasize though: I believed my disposition and work quality seemed just as good as it normally was.  I was wrong. From later talking to my coworkers, friends and family, later I realized that was not the case. According to them, I was like “a heroin addict, I looked strung out and was very difficult to be around.”  Since I regularly engage with the public, this would have significant consequences.

That August, things got even more pressing and I had to increase my work to over 100 hours a week (two-all nighters weekly).  During this time, I considered my disposition and the quality of my work to be just as good as it was at 40 hours a week. It’s like drinking alcohol– but without the pleasure.

The point being, those who say that they can work 60 or 80 hours a week without it affecting them are dead wrong. I was one of those guys – for years.  Luckily (or unluckily) the consequences for this became too obvious to ignore and I changed my work habits.

These days, we avoid crunch times like the plague. We no longer take retail availability into consideration for our product cycles so that we have the flexibility of just pushing the release date back. That’s how big a deal we consider excessive hours to be. It costs us less to push a date back than it does to deal with the consequences of having people work long hours.

I’ve been working on the AI this weekend and making a few proposed balancing changes. For one thing, I moved the tougher monsters away further from starting locations and murdered the remaining “Uhh” sound effects that make me cry the tears of a thousand rains every time I hear them (I get dehydrated a lot).

I’m making my own faction

The Drengin Empire are back, baby!

I’m not above gaming the system until Kael notices this. I should probably tell him that you can combine natural leader with cruel and get +1 attack. Should.

I am now ready to bring ruin, death, and pain to the world.

Nice place here. Remember how sunny and pleasant it was because when I’m done with it, it’ll make Mordor look like a resort.

I really need that balanced axe so…please die.

The Drengin Empire are able to train their slavelings.

The seem nice. I wonder what they’ll taste like.

This Apiary supplies food to Arrab. Some people like to “city spam”. Personally, we Drengin prefer a handful of very powerful cities being fed in by distant resources.

The known world in 179 AC. Tip: Ctrl-X will hide the UI so you can see just the map.

A few other little tips

Kael and I have difference preferences on the map view.  If you hit the 1 key, that’s the default view (Kael’s preference).  If you hit the 2 key you get my default camera view.

The known world in 210 AC. Click on it to get the high rez version.

Remember that nice area.  Well the city of Seclur has taken its place. I think I’ll rename it to Drengi for future reference.

Umderdroths. In Elemental: Destiny's Embers it took an iron golem, a Sion, and a champion to take one down.

When I'm play testing the game, I ultimately have to pick "a size" when I'm playing with the AI.

I know the forums aren't an ideal way to measure this (in fact, we should just send this data back really) but I wanted to get an informal gauge on what people play at.

Guys like me aren’t supposed to get “rich”. When you look at the most successful (or rich) people in the tech industry they usually have remarkably similar backgrounds.

By contrast, guys like me are supposed to be relegated to some back lab coding drivers.  That was, when I was in college, the dream.  Of course, that dream didn’t come true because I couldn’t afford college and had to work multiple jobs at once to pay for school. I discovered that the best way to make money was to work for yourself and that’s how Stardock was born.

Only through the bizarre start-up circumstances is a guy like me still in charge. Most of the criticisms I’ve read about me are spot-on.  I’m not qualified to run a company.  I’m unpolished, unprofessional and opinionated. I’m *that* forum guy spouting off on what have you.  I have the social skills of a…well, a programmer.

In the early days, I wanted investors. I’ve always known I wasn’t “the right guy” to be a CEO of a business. But at that crucial time, it was the dot-com craze and no one cared about companies making software.  And now, of course, it’s too late. We’ve done well enough that money is more of a…theoretical thing.  I don’t even bother to pay myself any more than necessary to get medical insurance.  Getting a salary or whatever is irrelevant at this stage.

If I have a point, and I really don’t, is that the US is still the land of opportunity. If a guy like me, who grew up in an apartment with a single mother, can make it, there is hope for anyone.

Real-time game streaming service, OnLive was a phenomenon when it debuted a couple years ago.  I think my precise opinion of it was “It’s doomed”.  More nuanced comments can be found here:

http://news.bigdownload.com/2009/03/25/stardock-ceo-speaks-about-onlive/

My opinion hasn’t changed on it even though it is a marvelous technology. I was hoping they’d got bought out or something to be incorporated as part of a larger solution.

See more here: http://mashable.com/2012/08/17/onlive-layoffs/

The more well known you are, the less control one has over the narrative. That’s why those who try to “leak” things to the media or try to manipulate the media narrative are playing with fire.  Most situations situations are fairly boring. Boring doesn’t generate page views. As a result, there is a tendency to spice those headlines up.

Brad: The Narrative

To use myself as an example, here are some facts vs. narratives I’ve read.

The realities are, naturally, far more nuanced than what is presented. 

For example, I support gay marriage, I’m pro-choice, I’m pro-progressive taxation, I live in a net 0 emissions home (solar and geothermal), I drive a Chevy Volt that is powered via my Solar Array, the environment at Stardock is basically a nerd paradise with virtually no turn-over…

…And yet, I’m for small government, generally prefer local control, adamantly oppose attempts by others to force behavior changes (so I’m sympathetic to Chick-fil-A even though I oppose their views), dislike most welfare programs (I grew up poor so I knew plenty of people who were abusing the system), and am a AGW skeptic (even though I own a gold certified green home).

But complexity doesn’t fit narratives. Narratives are designed to build someone up and then tear them down and repeat.  

There’s probably a formula for the amount of page views that would work similar to how voltage works: Page views = Awareness * (Existing Perception – New Perception).  A villain doing something good or a saint doing something bad = dynamite. Would almost make a good game…

People: The Narrative

Sometimes the narrative can become so overwhelming that it’s hard to come back from.  This is something that I think is pretty tragic.  The Daikatana ads “John Romero is going to make you his bitch” was 15 years ago but created such a strong narrative that one can only imagine the impact that had on his career – unfairly I think.

Al Gore had to deal with the “I invented the Internet” which was a very unfair narrative but one that probably (almost certainly) cost him the election in 2000 (it wouldn’t take much). 

These kinds of sound bites are easy to make and difficult to extinguish when they get off into the wild.

What we can do about it

The best thing we can do is try to amplify our own critical thinking. Be aware of the motivations of the media. The people who work there are usually very good people with a lot of integrity. But at the same time, it is a business that lives and dies on page views. Be wary of what you read, particularly the headline part. People are complex creatures, don’t try to pigeon hole someone into a stereo type.

If I knew then what I know now…

Recently on my favorite non-Stardock site, Quarter to Three we celebrated its 10 year anniversary.  10 years ago was before Galactic Civilizations (for Windows), Sins of a Solar Empire, ObjectDock, Fences, Tiles, Demigod, etc.

So what was my biggest internet activity 10 years ago and before? Moderating our forums.  I also was a moderator of Neowin.net’s forums when it started out.

And let me tell you, nothing creates long-term animosity faster than having to enforce forum rules.  Now, if I had known back then that my name would come up in the media on a regular basis, I would have avoided being a moderator like the plague because you can always count on some banned or moderated person to come out of the woodwork to attest to your douchery in comments on other sites.

So do we have any current or former online community moderators reading this? Share your stories with the community in the comments. Being a moderator is a thankless job but so crucial to keeping the overall online community from becoming toxic.

Freshly installed over my Windows 7 system.  Normally I would do a full rebuild but most people who are upgrading aren’t going to do that.

Remembering the experience formerly known as Metro:

First Impressions

A lot of tools are now very difficult to find.  I can’t find the event viewer. Typing it in the search area brings up nothing.  In fact, uninstalling things is actually quite a pain because now you have to first go to control panel and then the add/remove programs (you can’t just search for control panel applets in Windows 8).

Where’s the registry editor?

The right-click menu hangs on the desktop every time I do it.  I’m trying to look into why that might be. I’ll probably go to the registry and get rid of the extra crap….which…I can’t because the registry editor seems to be gone (i.e. I can’t type registry and bring up the registry editor)…

My password…

Windows 8 changed my desktop logon password to my Live ID password without asking.

MSConfig

MSConfig is still easily accessible. From that, I was able to get to the registry editor and go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ Directory \ Background \ shellex \ ContextMenuHandlers to remove legacy shell handlers.

Backgrounds

I like the new desktop backgrounds. Though, they were a bit skimpy on the quantity of them.

The Search

Nothing comes up if you type reged but if you type out the entire word, regedit, it will show up.  This strikes me as a significant back step.

The Store…

I’m running at 2560 x 1440.

Amazing apps.

Ok, I’m going to download and use Wikipedia.

Feel free to tell me how stupid I am.  I cannot figure out how to search…

…

Ok, I figured it out. I have to move my mouse to the top right to bring up the charms bar, then I move the mouse down to the search. Mind you, because I have multiple monitors, this is a pain in the ass. It is really too much for the app to have the search field displayed without having to make multiple clicks?

The Shell

YMMV but the new shell strikes me as a step back.

They’ve brought back, by default, the menubar. And there’s no obvious way to make it go away. There’s a bit of sloppiness here (two menu items called Manage? I know they relate to their corresponding tools action item but still).  It’s not a biggie, just would like an obvious way to get rid of that menu bar entirely.

Performance

I can’t put my finger on it but it feels sluggish. Launching things is noticeably faster. It’s snappier when opening windows. But when I’m typing or interacting with apps I’m used to interacting day in and day out, they feel sluggish (even typing this blog in, I’m feeling a slight delay between the key press and the letter appearing). That is probably something specific to my machine or the fact I didn’t install on a clean machine so take that with a grain of salt.

Some nice things

One very nice feature they threw in for multiple monitor users is that each monitor essentially acts as its own quasi-independent display.  The jury on usability remains out on it but it’s got promise.

Some quick conclusions

The desktop experience of Windows 8 is as about as good as Windows 7.  That said, I can’t really say users gain anything upgrading to Windows 8 from Windows 7.

My single biggest gripe, and it’s kind of a show-stopper, is “Metro”.  I like tablets. I have several. I plan to get Surface. I have a Lenovo tablet on order. But trying to combine the two experiences together was a mistake and it’s going to cost them. I can’t imagine an enterprise customer upgrading to this. 

Users who like to have the latest/greatest will be at a cross-roads here.  If you have multiple monitors, the experience kind of sucks overall because – and remember this carefully – the entire new user metaphor for Windows 8 is premised around moving the mouse to screen edges.  That is how you’re supposed to navigate the Windows 8 ecosystem.

I’m also not sure what we’re supposed to make out of Metro (Windows 8 UI) style apps. They’re clearly designed for tablets running at around 150dpi at lower resolution.  I’m not sure what a traditional PC user is supposed to do with these apps. They’re not useful – so far.  They’d be fine on a tablet but on a desktop.

There is also a lack of polish in the Metro apps. They feel rushed to me.  Take the weather app. Look closely at it. Does this compete well?  Some of the images have masking problems (where the image was originally on a different colored background). Compare this app to what you see on iOS or Android even.

Overall

Overall, if I got Windows 8 on a new machine, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. It’s not a bad OS. It’s just a significant step down from Windows 7.  Coming from say Windows XP or Vista, it’s a step up.

I would really like to see Microsoft put some effort into updating Windows 8 to be less schizophrenic.  If I’m installing it on a regular PC, let me use it as such.  Don’t force me to use my mouse as if it’s a surrogate set of fingers.

Updates and corrections

(I’ll be adding to this as I learn more)

One thing that I learned (and I don’t like) is that when you start typing in the search filed, it categorizes them for you. I don’t like this. That’s why I couldn’t find add/remove programs is because apps was selected. I have to manually select settings and look in there. The fix for this would be to have an “all” category that is at the top.

I also really don’t like that I type my search on the right of the screen and the results show up on the left. In Windows 7, you just start typing and the item shows up almost immediately above it.

I used to have more time to blog. Then I had kids.  Here’s a random stream of consciousness.

• Wish I had something handy to clean my keyboard. I love these old Dell keyboards but it might be time to get a new one.
• Seen a lot of articles about lawsuits lately. It’s a shame people don’t read the actual filings and instead focus on the sensational, misleading, headline.
• Speaking of lawsuits, if you operate an IP-based company, lawsuits are daily life unfortunately. IP lawsuits (sometimes referred to as “patent trolls”) don’t just hit the big guys.
• Forum Gamification. Need to write about that.
• Excited about Fallen Enchantress. It really is looking good.
• Wish Start8 would hurry up and get done. I have been groveling to get them to get me a private beta build.
• The CEO is the one ultimately responsible for the failure of a product.
• When a product is successful, the CEO’s role was creating the leadership and environment for that success.
• I got a pet turtle when I was 15.  While I was up north last week, he got out of his outdoor terrarium. I’d had him for 26 years. Hopefully he’s living it up in the woods behind the house. I hope.
• I suspect neither Obama nor Romney are anything like how they are portrayed.
• The more public a figure you are, the less control you have over your public perception.
• The public perception of people is rarely remotely similar to what the person is like.
• Google never forgets.
• The software group may actually lose this year to the games group for generating revenue.
• That’s mainly because of Sins rebellion combined with enterprise software purchases in a bit of a hiatus during the Windows 8 release.
• Company morale is very high. I don’t think anyone’s left the company this year (either voluntarily or involuntarily).
• My dog, Bailey, comes to work with me now.
• Steam has an amazing self-serve uploading system. IT wants all games placed on it but that would mean requiring Steam for our games which I think would cause a minor riot.  That said, all things being equal, I’d prefer to go that route.
• So much email back log.

While the first impressions are still fresh, please go here:

https://www.elementalgame.com/journals

and vote on what you think of Beta 4.

Thanks!